July 26, 2015

Each week, you may find information here about the music in the traditional worship services at First United Methodist Church in Lewisville, Texas.  Some of this information is original; much of it is "borrowed" from other sources such as Wikipedia, GBOD, and hymnary.org.  It is my hope that this information will enhance your understanding and enrich your worship experience.  

About the Organ Music:

God Leads Us Along – Ethel Tench Rogers

George Young (c. 1855-1935) was a carpenter, and a preacher of the gospel. In the late nineteenth century he laboured in obscurity, serving small rural areas in the United States. Often his income was so small he had difficulty supporting his wife and family. Finally, after a great deal of effort and years of sacrifice, the Youngs were able to move into a small house they had built for themselves. All were delighted with the new place, but tragedy soon overtook them. While George was away holding meetings in another community, some ruffians who were hostile to the gospel he preached set fire to the Young’s home burning it to the ground.

In 1903, George Young published a hymn for which he wrote both words and music. It is a testimony to his faith in God, in spite of this severe trial. It depicts different kinds of circumstances and experiences we face in life, with a reminder that the Lord provides for us in them all. The opening stanza paints a lovely picture, reminiscent of the 23rd Psalm. But the author was well aware that not all of life is like that. The song’s refrain gives a more sobering view of life’s trials.

Around 1942, hymn writer Haldor Lillenas decided to track down George Young’s widow. He got an address in a small town and, driving there, he stopped at a gas station to ask for directions. When the attendant saw the address, he said, “Why sir, that’s the County Poor House up the road about three miles. And mister, when I say poor house, I really mean poor house!”  Not knowing what to expect, Lillenas made his way there. He found Mrs. Young, a tiny, elderly woman, in surroundings that were far from congenial. However, she radiated the joy of the Lord, and spoke of how He’d guided her and her husband over many years. Then, she exclaimed, “Dr. Lillenas, God led me here!” I’m so glad He did, for you know, about every month someone comes into this place to spend the rest of their days….So many of them don’t know my Jesus. I’m having the time of my life introducing them to Jesus! Dr. Lillenas, isn’t it wonderful how God leads!”

In shady, green pastures, so rich and so sweet,

God leads His dear children along;
Where the water’s cool flow bathes the weary one’s feet, 

God leads His dear children along.

Refrain:

Some through the waters, some through the flood,
Some through the fire, but all through the blood;
Some through great sorrow, but God gives a song,
In the night season and all the day long.

Sometimes on the mount where the sun shines so bright,
God leads His dear children along;
Sometimes in the valley, in darkest of night,
God leads His dear children along.

Though sorrows befall us and evils oppose,
God leads His dear children along;
Through grace we can conquer, defeat all our foes,
God leads His dear children along.

Away from the mire, and away from the clay,
God leads His dear children along;
Away up in glory, eternity’s day,
God leads His dear children along.

Ethel Tench Rogers (1914-2008) studied organ at the University of Vienna, Austria. She wrote over 150 collections for piano, organ, synthesizer, and children's anthems.

About the Handbell Music:

I Will Arise and Go to Jesus/On Jordan’s Stormy Banks I Stand –

Martha Lynn Thompson

Joseph Hart (1712-1768) was never voted "most likely to become a minister" by the friends of his youth. Though raised among Christian influences, he was not serious about spiritual matters and soon fell into, as he put it, the "vanities and vices" of youth. But as an adult he began to feel a concern for his soul, running what he described as "an uneasy restless round of sinning and repenting." Frustrated by his inner turmoil, he looked for answers elsewhere; and listening to all the wrong voices of the age, fell captive to a doctrine that taught grace unfettered by any responsibility. Among his scholarly writings during this period was a scathing attack on John Wesley titled The Unreasonableness of Religion (1741), which reveals his adherence to the rationalist critics and to a certain extent to deism. But approaching the age of forty, he became convicted of the error of his beliefs and reformed his ways. Over the next few years he began in earnest to seek a truer path, and eventually became a minister to a Congregationalist body in London.

Hymns composed on various subjects (1759), which went through countless editions as "Hart's Hymns," was written during this period of deep soul-searching and repentance beginning around 1757. According to Hart, "They are published not only in the same order, but also in the same manner in which they were first written: for though they have since undergone a cursory revisal, and have been lightly retouched, the alterations I have made in them are neither very numerous nor material." His collection is therefore not only an anthology of his work, but a spiritual journal of this period in his life. And for a body of hymns so quickly got together, his work well stood the test of time. Augmented by his supplements of 1762 and 1768, "Hart's Hymns" became a staple in Calvinist circles.

"Come, ye sinners" is held by many to be Hart's greatest hymn. It is #100 in his original 1759 collection, and falls within the last group of hymns in that work, probably written in the spring of that year. These hymns as a group seem to look back in review of Hart's spiritual journey, though they still shows flashes of that "disorder and darkness of soul" that plagued him over his sins. Frequent themes are the assurance of salvation, our hopelessness without the atoning work of Christ, the majesty of Christ revealed in His humble sacrifice, and encouragement to the weak in faith.  To this extent, then, "Come, ye sinners" is as much autobiography as invitation.

Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, Weak and wounded, sick and sore;
Jesus ready stands to save you, Full of pity, love, and pow'r:
He is able, He is able, He is willing: doubt no more.

Come, ye thirsty, come and welcome, God's free bounty glorify;
True belief and true repentance, Ev'ry grace that brings us nigh,
Without money, without money, Come to Jesus Christ and buy.

Come, ye weary, heavy laden, Bruised and broken, full of sin;
If you tarry till you're better, You may never enter in:
Not the righteous, not the righteous; Sinners Jesus came to win.

The chorus that follows each stanza, however, is by an entirely different hand:

      I will arise and go to Jesus, He will embrace me in His arms;
      In the arms of my dear Savior, O! There are ten thousand charms.

Raymond Glover has identified this as a variant on one of the stanzas of Caleb Jarvis Taylor's "Don't you see my Jesus coming?" Caleb Jarvis Taylor (1763-1816) was a schoolteacher from Maryland who served as a fill-in preacher for Methodist churches in western Virginia and Pennsylvania. In 1792 he moved to north central Kentucky, where he continued to teach school as his primary support, but preached wherever and whenever he could. Sometimes he preached as an official circuit rider sponsored by a Methodist association, but more often it was his willingness to fill vacancies for other preachers that kept him in the pulpit. He was the founder of the Mt. Gilead Methodist Church just north of Paris, Kentucky, also known as the Old Matheny Meeting House, probably the earliest Methodist congregation in that area northeast of Lexington. By 1795 he relocated to the vicinity of what is now Maysville, Kentucky, along the Ohio River.

The Mt. Gilead meeting house was less than ten miles from the famous Cane Ridge meeting house, so it was inevitable that Taylor was right in the thick of the Second Great Awakening. And though he was known to be a successful revivalist, he was noted by his contemporaries as well as by modern historians as one of the chief songwriters of this watershed moment in American religious history.

The earliest appearance of this tune in print appears to be that found in William Walker's Southern Harmony. As was typical of the old colonial singing-school music, Walker's arrangement places the melody in the tenor voice; he added a bass part below and a "treble" above. The Sacred Harp version has an alto part, added in later years, to fill out a more typical voicing. William "Singing Billy" Walker (1809-1875) was a Baptist song leader from Spartanburg, South Carolina. His Southern Harmony (1835) is one of the most important hymn publications in American history, because it preserved many of the melodies of the camp-meeting folk hymns at a time when the generation that created them was passing away. (Earlier publications of camp-meeting songs did not include the music.)

The writer of “On Jordan’s Stormy Banks”, Samuel Stennett (1727-1795), an English Baptist, came from a long line of ministers. He was the son of a Seventh-Day Adventist pastor.  In the 18th century, university education was not easily available to nonconformist families—those who refused to swear allegiance to the Church of England.  Stennett did study at the academy at Miles End with distinction, however.  In spite of his nonconformist religious stance, Stennett was a personal friend to the reigning monarch, King George III.  Stennett was honored in 1763 with a doctor of divinity degree from King’s College, Aberdeen, for his accomplishments.  He served as an assistant to his father in his congregation in 1747 and assumed the position of pastor upon his father’s death in 1758. 

John Rippon, an English Baptist pastor, published in 1787 an influential collection, A Selection of Hymns from the Best Authors. Thirty-eight of Stennett’s hymns appeared in this popular collection. Among those was a hymn under the heading of “Heaven Anticipated” with the title of “The Promised Land” in eight four-line stanzas.  The hymn as it appeared in America looked and sounded much different. William Walker’s The Southern Harmony (1835) was the first to include “The Promised Land.” The Southern Harmony attributes the tune to “Miss M. Durham” but we know nothing else about the composer. The tune has many of the characteristics the traditional folk melodies of the time.  Originally written in a minor mode, Rigdon M. McIntosh, a Southern musician, altered the tune to the major mode, and as was customary among American evangelicals in the 19th century added a refrain beginning with “I am bound for the promised land.” This version was published in 1895 in H. R. Christie’s Gospel Light and has become the standard version for many hymnals since that time.  The hymn has appeared in each American Methodist hymnal since Francis Asbury included it in his Supplement to the Pocket Hymn Book (1808).

On Jordan's stormy banks I stand, and cast a wishful eye
to Canaan's fair and happy land where my possessions lie.
Refrain
I'm bound for the promised land, I'm bound for the promised land.
Oh, who will come and go with me? I'm bound for the promised land.

There gen'rous fruits that never fail, on trees immortal grow.
There rocks and hills and brooks and vales with milk and honey flow.

All o'er those wide-extended plains shines one eternal day;
there God the Son forever reigns and scatters night away.

No chilling wind nor pois'nous breath can reach that healthful shore;
sickness and sorrow pain and death are felt and feared no more.

When shall I reach that happy place and be forever blest?
When shall I see my Father's face and in his bosom rest?

Martha Lynn Thompson has served as Organist and Associate Minister of Music at St. James United Methodist Church in Little Rock, Arkansas, since 1969. Her husband, Felix, is the Senior Minister of Music and together they direct a program that includes 12 handbell choirs and seven vocal choirs. Mrs. Thompson is certified as a Director of Music and is also a Diaconal Minister in the United Methodist Church. With numerous articles and collections in print, she has more than 190 published handbell arrangements and transcriptions that range from music for the beginning bell choir to music for the most advanced choirs. In 1995 she was designated "Master Instructor of Handbell Notation," a lifetime honor conferred by the American Guild of English Handbell Ringers, Inc.

About the Hymns:

O Worship the King

Of Scottish ancestry, Robert Grant (1779-1838) was born in India, where his father was a director of the East India Company. He attended Magdalen College, Cambridge, and was called to the bar in 1807. He had a distinguished public career a Governor of Bombay and as a member of the British Parliament, where he sponsored a bill to remove civil restrictions on Jews. Grant was knighted in 1834. His hymn texts were published in the Christian Observer (1806-1815), in Elliot’s Psalms and Hymns (1835), and posthumously by his brother as Sacred Poems (1839).

Grant’s text was influenced by William Kethe’s paraphrase of Psalm 104 in the Anglo-Genevan Psalter (1561). Grant’s text was first published in Edward Bickersteth’s Christian Psalmody (1833) with several unauthorized alterations. In 1835 his original six-stanza text was published in Henry Elliott’s Psalm and Hymns. Stanza 3 was omitted in the Psalter Hymnal.

Rather than being a paraphrase or versification, the text is a meditation on the creation theme of Psalm 104, focusing on God’s creation as a testimony to his “measureless might.” More personal in tone, stanzas 4 and 5 confess the compassion of God toward his creatures and affirm with apocalyptic vision that the “ransomed creation, with glory ablaze” will join with angels to hymn its praise to God.  In the last verse, Grant points to Christ as the ultimate reconciler of a broken, but still beautiful creation. An original last stanza that we no longer sing reads, “The humbler creation, though feeble their lays, with true adoration shall lisp to Thy praise.”

Jesus Loves Me

"Jesus Loves Me" was written by Anna Bartlett Warner (1827–1915). The lyrics first appeared as a poem in the context of an 1860 novel called Say and Seal, written by her older sister Susan Warner (1819–1885), in which the words were spoken as a comforting poem to a dying child. The tune was added in 1862 by William Bradbury (1816–1868). Along with his tune, Bradbury added his own chorus "Yes, Jesus loves me, Yes, Jesus Loves me"  After publication as a song it became one of the most popular Christian hymns in churches around the world,  especially among children.

Anna’s family home was quite close to the United States Military Academy at West Point, in New York, in the era just before the Civil War. Each Sunday Anna taught Bible classes to the cadets. Her remains are buried in the military cemetery, and her family home is now a museum on the grounds of the United States Military Academy.

Standing on the Promises

R. Kelso Carter became an ordained Methodist minister (1887) at the age of 38. A year earlier, he was a professor at the Pennsylvania Military Academy, where he wrote the hymn, "Standing On the Promises," after reading Apostle Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians I: 20:  "For all the promise of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us."  It was published in Songs of Perfect Love, one of two hymns compiled by Carter.  The drum-beating, military march style of the music reflects the influence of the military academy life that surrounded Carter when it was written.  Carter was active in the Methodist Camp-Meeting movement, and “Standing on the Promises” was widely used in evangelistic crusades well into the 20^th  century and is still found in many hymnals.  It is a reminder of the Christian’s daily dependence on the promises of God.